Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction

by James Henderson

  When she took me in her mouth I sat up and pulled her to me. “Uh-uh,” I said, and heard her sigh.

  Slurring slightly she said, “Let me love you, baby. Please.” The scent of wine rode her breath hard. “I don’t understand why you don’t want me?”

  “I want you--you know that.”

  “Let me do what I want to do,” she said, and tried to kissed me. That wasn’t happening; I turned my head. “What? You won’t kiss me now?”

  “Doreen, you’ve been drinking.”

  “I had two glasses--Vida drank most of it. Give me a kiss.”

  I kissed her on the cheek and said, “There you go,” and hugged her tight.

  Bobby Womack was singing If You Think You’re Lonely Now. I heard Doreen sniffle, followed by a wetness on my shoulder where she was resting her head.

  Damn! All my fault now. Still she could’ve cried her heart out, I wasn’t kissing her. Wherever she’d studied the art of fellatio she should’ve finished the course, learned what you were not to do afterward. No kissing. None whatsoever.

  Doreen got up and I watched her get a blanket out of the bedroom closet and walk out, leaving the door open. I heard her gargling in the bathroom. Why didn’t she think of that a few minutes ago? Moments later I heard the television in the living room.

  Eminem was rapping on the radio now, dissing his mother, telling the world he wouldn’t let her see her grandbaby. What the hell did she do to him?

  Yeah, just like I thought, it’s going to be a long night.

  Chapter 6

  The molding machine made a different noise when one board rolled through it than when boards ran continuously. Berry, closeted in his office, could distinguish the difference better than anyone. Usually the second time he heard a single board rolling out of one of the two molding machines he’d come out and speak to the man feeding it.

  Daydreaming, this was my fourth time letting a board roll alone, despite trying to jam the next one in to catch up. Out came Berry, his eyes wide and angry behind thick bifocals, wearing his customary red-white-and-blue flannel shirt, jeans and black steel-toe workboots. In one hand he had a sheet of paper. I saw it was the handwritten two-weeks notice I’d given him earlier.

  Tuna fish on his breath, he said, “Thinking ’bout your next job, Jim?” Any name that started with J--John, Jerry, James, Johnny, Jesus--Berry reduced to Jim. Not expecting an answer he said, “You think you can screw the duck here till you start your new job? Not on my watch, buddy.”

  Saying buddy like a curse word.

  “Go relieve Ali on the ripsaw,” Berry said. “I doubt he’s dreaming of his next job.”

  No doubt, Ali was work release; he was happy to do anything except prison work.

  I stood in the entranceway to the ripsaw room watching Tucker feed one twelve-inch-wide board after the other into the ripsaw as Ali grabbed the planks that slid out the other end on a waist-high table and assorted them midair into one of three wheeled buggies, and thought to tell Berry to kiss my ass.

  Upcoming rent squelched that decision.

  Ali, sweating profusely in prison-issue light-gray shirt and dark-gray slacks, patted me on the back and handed me his gloves. Once he’d lifted up his boot, showed me the V-cut in the heel, told me that was for tracking escapees.

  Tucker, almost seven-foot tall, three hundred pounds plus, midnight-black with the pinkest lips I’ve ever seen on a black man, waited for me to give the ready signal. He was smiling. I’d never seen him smile before. Tucker didn’t like anyone who wasn’t work release, and now he had what he called a free-world fool at the other end of the ripsaw.

  I knew what would happen the second I waved him to start.

  The molding machines ran a ten-foot two-by-four through in about fifteen seconds; the ripsaw ran a ten-foot twelve-inch-wide board through in a fraction of that time, faster than you could say, Oh shit.

  The trick was to grab the oncoming planks before they got to you, which bought a few seconds before the next set came through, then with two hands bounce the planks off the end of the table and assort them midair into either the ready-for-molding buggy, the handsaw buggy, or the strap buggy.

  So far so good: I was working it, sweating my ass off but working it, the ripsaw zinging, Tucker bending over and picking up thirty-pound boards and sending them through like a madman…Zing Zing Zing Zing…

  The thin trim that came off ash, birch, and pine wood would curl up and slide off the table down the aluminum siding slanted against it into the conveyor that rolled to the chipper on the outside of the building.

  Zing Zing Zing Zing…

  Red oak, what we were working with now, didn’t do that: the thin trim bunched up near the crack where the table met the ripsaw. I waved at Tucker to stop so I could push the trim into the conveyor.

  He saw me, but acted like he didn’t.

  Zing Zing Zing Zing…

  I shouted at him and he pretended he didn’t hear.

  Zing Zing Zing Zing…

  Now the accumulation of trim was causing the planks to come out curved. Tucker kept sending them through. A moment of indecision, not sure which buggy to bounce a handful of curled planks into, I got behind.

  Zing Zing Zing Zing…

  Planks hit the floor, planks caromed off the wall a few feet behind me, planks piled up all around me, fell into the conveyor and clogged up the chipper--and that silly country bumpkin who detectives had convinced a hole was in one of the socks covering his hands during a burgalary kept sending them through.

  Zing Zing Zing Zing…

  Through a rectangular opening in the mountain of wood engulfing me I saw Berry motion Tucker to stop.

  I don’t remember what Berry was saying to me as I cleared a path, nor do I remember picking up a two-by-four, but I do remember getting in Tucker’s face, pointing the two-by-four at him, saying, “Man, you could’ve got me hurt! You heard me tell you to stop!”

  Those pink lips thinned into a smirk, Tucker looked me in the eye, inviting me to try him. Berry came up behind me, asked Tucker what happened, nodded as Tucker lied that he didn’t see I was in trouble and said Ali kept up.

  “You a lie!” I said. “You saw me. You know you lying!” Tucker shrugged and I said, “Convict!”

  That got a look from him. Then I got to thinking: Tucker would think twice before fighting and risk getting sent back to the farm. But if I pushed him far enough--and in any other setting I wouldn’t be pushing him at all, whether he tried to kill me or not--he might say to hell with it and kick my ass.

  Berry said, “That’s enough, go back to work.”

  “I’m not working with him again,” I told Berry, noticing everybody had stopped working, staring.

  Berry put on his tough face. “Go back to work!”

  Tossing the board onto the table, I said, “Forget about it, Fairy,” and walked off. Got to the Cadillac, I turned and went back in, having forgotten to clock out.

  An hour ago I was relishing the fact that I had only eight more working days at Goldenwood, had even considered telling Berry to kiss my ass after receiving my last check.

  Now, driving home, I was more than a little worried. Berry might call the bank that I unwisely named in my two-weeks notice, tell them I quit, tell them I was a bad employee.

  Mostly I worried what Doreen would say. Goldenwood would drag their feet mailing my last check; we’d have to get the money out of our savings account to cover rent. She wouldn’t like that at all.

  * * * * *

  Lewis and I sat in the living room while Doreen was in the kitchen whipping up a pot of chicken and rice. Thinking no need to aggravate her before dinner, I decided to break the news later.

  Lewis looked up from his coloring book and said, “What’s the matter, John?” I told him nothing, but he persisted. “You sure?”

  That brought Doreen out of the kitchen.

  “What’s the matter, John?” she said. “
You haven’t said two words. What’s wrong?”

  “I sorta quit my job,” I said, and then told her the abridged version of Tucker, a psychopathic convict, and Berry’s sinister plot to kill me.

  To my surprise, Doreen said, “Don’t worry about it. You were leaving that rotten job anyway, don’t worry about it.”

  “You know Goldenwood won’t let me pick up that last check and they’ll mail it when they feel like it. We’ll hafta get the rent money out of savings.”

  Returning to the kitchen she said, “No big deal. We’ll do what we have to do.”

  All that time worried she’d throw a hissy fit.

  “John,” Doreen said, “you’ll be here in the evening. Lewis could stay with you after school, if that’s not a problem.”

  Lewis grinned at me and said, “Aw, man, that’ll be great!”

  Next to his coloring book was a stack of lemon cookies. I watched him pick one up, lick it and then pop it in his mouth. Noticing me staring at him, he grinned again, cookie crumbs rolling out of his maw. He then tilted his head back, fingered his gums, and stared at the haul, looking somewhat surprised.

  “Doreen, honey,” I said as Lewis sucked the goo off his finger, “I was thinking…I might do some volunteer work. Maybe go over to the hospital, wheel a few patients around. You know, to avoid getting rusty.”

  * * * * *

  That fast it was over. I tried to make it last by thinking about baseball, but then looked down and saw my package disappearing between Doreen’s thighs, and I lost it.

  Doreen sighed when I rolled off her. I said, “Give me a few minutes and we’ll do it again.”

  “It’s okay, baby,” Doreen said. “It was just fine.” She moved over and lay her head on my chest.

  I removed her hair from my mouth and said, “It has been a long time, you know? Two weeks. First time that long that’s a warmup.”

  “I said it was fine. Trust me.”

  A good meal was fine. New clothes were fine. A good-looking woman was fine. But sex was either lousy, all right or great; not fine.

  “Hank at Goldenwood, he told me he tells his girlfriend, ‘Come now or come when I get back.’” I laughed, but Doreen didn’t find it funny at all.

  “With that attitude,” she said, “I doubt Hank will have a girlfriend long.” Changing the subject: “Will Lewis be okay with you tomorrow? He can go to mama’s if you don’t want to deal with him.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” I said. “I’m sure we can find something to do.”

  “There’s a problem, call me. I’ll talk to him before I leave in the morning, tell him not to act up. You don’t mind, let him eat what he wants, okay? Mama lets him do that at her house. Might be a problem if he stops all a sudden.”

  In other words, don’t whoop his butt and let him gorge himself silly.

  I imagined Lewis stuffing himself above maximum capacity, rolling on the floor, holding his stomach, wailing in pain, pleading for me to call his mama, the paramedics. Uh-uh. Fat chance.

  Doreen, reading my mind, said, “John, take care of my son.” She found my hand and interlocked her fingers in mine. “Don’t let anything happen to him, please.” Sounding if she were about to cry.

  “I’ll take care of him.” Use the earplugs from the job while he’s eating.

  Doreen said, “We were little, Pooh and me, when Daddy got sick. Lewis’ age. Mama told us Daddy had lung cancer--we didn’t know what that was, thought he’d get better. Mama knew. She got a job, went to night school. Told Pooh and me to look after Daddy. Soon as she left Pooh took off, went over to his friend’s house, came back a few minutes before Mama came home.

  “Pooh was scared. Daddy all skinny, a skeleton, was a big, burly man before he took sick. The chemo took his hair out, he went blind. Pooh couldn’t handle all that. Daddy moaning in pain, sometimes forgetting who we were. Me? I was right there by his side till the last time they took him to the hospital. Rubbed his back, tried to make him comfortable.” She paused, cleared her throat. “God, I prayed he’d get better.”

  She stopped and I thought that was it. But then she said, “Lewis, he looks just like Daddy. I look at him and I see my daddy, when he was healthy. Those fat cheeks, the bushy eyebrows, that nose…” She started crying, tried to stifle it. “That’s why I’m a little overprotective of him.” A little? “Just the thought of him suffering any of what I did…” She broke into loud sobs.

  I couldn’t make the connection. Even if I were to suffer ten deadly diseases, I couldn’t imagine Lewis being tore up about it--unless my deathbed blocked the fridge.

  “Maybe we’ll go fishing tomorrow,” I said. “The library lets you check out rod and reels. We’ll dig up some worms, go out to the river or Lake Conway. That’ll be fun.”

  Doreen tried to say something but couldn’t get the words out.

  I fell asleep as she cried on my chest.

  Chapter 7

  Two red bobbers rode waves stirred by bass boats circumnavigating dead trees in the middle of Lake Conway, thirty miles west of Little Rock. The temperature was in the low nineties.

  Sitting on a rocky incline in the shade of a bridge that creaked each time a big truck crossed it, I watched Lewis throw rocks in the water. I watched Lewis toss a coke can in the water. I watched Lewis scratch his name in a steel beam with a rock.

  I watched Lewis do a lot of things but watch his bobber, his the only one jiggling every now and then, once disappearing completely underwater, and by the time I grabbed his rod and reel, whatever had it was gone, the worm too.

  When I told him we were going fishing he was giddy with excitement. Then, a minute after getting here, he’d lost all interest in fishing.

  His bobber moved against the current and I said, “Lewis, you getting a bite.” The bobber disappeared and the rod and reel was sliding toward the water when he grabbed it and reeled in the opposite direction, the line unraveling on the spool. “Turn it the other way--you got him.”

  The rod bent severely, the line in the water shooting in one direction then the other, Lewis, straining to keep hold, said, “I think I got something big, John. I don’t think I can hold--” Just then a big fish shot out the water, flipped in the air and landed with a loud splash.

  “Damn!” Lewis said, and stared at me. “Oops. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  Laughing, I said, “Don’t worry ’bout that--bring him in. Keep his head up.” He offered me the reel. “No, he’s yours. You got him.” I put a hand on his shoulder. “You got him, Lewis.”

  The fish, a largemouth bass, five pounds or more by the looks of it, flipped and flopped as Lewis reeled it onto the bank.

  “I got it! I got it!” Lewis said, and jerked the rod. The line snapped. I grabbed the bass by the tail just as it was flopping near the water’s edge. But I couldn’t hold it.

  Lewis said, “Nooooo!” as the bass smacked the water, and with one flick of its tail, disappeared. “Aw, John, you let it get away.”

  “Let’s go home,” I said. Lewis wanted to stay, thinking we could land the fish again. “Naw,” I told him. “The hook? You wouldn’t want to eat with a hook in your mouth, would ya?”

  He didn’t answer, and I remembered who I was dealing with. Hook or not, if Lewis could open his mouth he would eat.

  As we were riding back home, the rods hanging out the window, the wind banging the bobbers against the top, Lewis said, “A barracuda, that’s what it was. Nobody’ll believe it, though.”

  Almost told him it was a bass, not a barracuda, but the look on his face stopped me. Watching him motion a truck driver to toot his air horn, I thought, get him away from his mother he’s not that bad. He needed a haircut, his light-brown wavy hair though cut low growing down the nape of his neck. Rubbing my head, I noticed I needed one too.

  “Lewis, tomorrow you and I’ll go get a haircut.”

  He turned and looked at me. “Mama takes me. You think she’ll mind?”
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  I told him she wouldn’t mind and when we were a block away from the apartment I let him sit in my lap and bring the Caddy in.

  * * * * *

  Three thousand square feet. Double garage. Three bedrooms. A fireplace in the dining room, an island in the kitchen, and a fenced-in backyard. Doreen just loved the split-level red brick house. And Brad Davis, an old white guy with a Santa Claus beard, liked Doreen, smiling as he focused the conversation her way.

  His wife died a year ago, he told her. “I’m moving to New Orleans,” he said, “live near my daughter and my grandchildren.” He pulled a wallet from his gray trousers, showed Doreen pictures of his grandchildren. “I’m going this weekend to look at a house down there, but I’ll be back in two weeks.”

  Doreen told him she loved the house. “What you think, John?”

  How much? “It’s nice.” To St. Nick: “You say you’re not selling through a bank?”

  Looking at Doreen, he said, “No, I can finance it myself.” Then he told her he was an ex-car salesman, thirty-something years, knew all about financing. “Eliminate the middleman. Your credit fairly good, isn’t it?”

  “So-so,” Doreen said. “It’s not great, but…My husband’s a banker, I’m a teacher. We pay our bills.”

  Brad smiled, told Doreen he’d be willing to work with us, said he’d rather sell it to a young, professional married couple than someone single. Doreen said we needed a few days to think it over, we would let him know when he got back.

  Driving home Doreen couldn’t stop talking about how blessed we were to find a Christian man selling a great house.

  “He told you he was a Christian?” I said. “When?”

  “I knew it when he said hello. You think he wasn’t a man of God he’d be so willing to work with us?”

  “I don’t know. I got the impression you reminded him of someone he saw on a porno website. Notice he hardly said anything to me.”

  Doreen shook her head. “John, you’re not killing my joy. I won’t let you do it. We’re going to buy that house. We can use that extra bedroom as an office…or a playroom for Lewis.” She grabbed my package. “Or a baby room.”